You remember them right? Obsessed with knowledge and philosophy and completely dismissive of the physical.

I don’t have the slightest problem living with stripped bare walls and empty drawers. In fact, I really like it.

I love the freedom of minimalism. I really and truly believe that living with less is an upstream life worth living. So I read it about. I agreed with it. I melded it close with my faith that asked me to give more, be free, and live lightly.

But, friends, we have a bit of a problem when deeds become doctrine.

I knew I had a problem when I was sick with shame and guilt ridden in March about buying a pair of shorts. The amount of shorts I owned when I threw that particular holy hissy fit? Zero. None. Right in the face of pool trips and 100 plus temperatures.

(Writing it out I can see how crazy it is, but y’all, that’s how bad theology happens.)

I had somehow convinced myself that God was measuring my faith based on how few things I could own.

I had some seriously broke down theology.

Justice and Righteousness had been the goal, compassion for those with less, and a spiritually rich life. A good goal by any means, but where I ended up was judgmental of the material blessed, dismissive of the beautiful, and skeptical of the tangible.

In one of my favorite C. S. Lewis quotes ever (And, let’s be honest, that’s like picking a favorite kid.) he points out a hard truth for me to learn. “...My idea of God is a not divine idea. It has to be shattered from time to time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?..”

“The tangible is having a moment in my life.”

I wrote that caption under a random picture a few weeks ago and with a it a flood of unexpected relief washed over my soul.

Because I’m in a hard faith season. And until I wrote the words I hadn’t realized they were true. Until I confessed that I hadn’t realized that I was cloaked in shame for needing something to hold on to.You know, with my actual hands.

It turns out it wasn’t until I was kneading out some actual bread, and sipping the juice squeezed out of an actual fruit that I was able to let go of my bad theology and drink deeply of truth.

If we deny the physical we deny the fullness of the gift of a Saving Grace that wore skin.

His presence shattered my idea of Him.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’ll probably go ahead and keep an empty drawer in each room. I like my capsule wardrobe, and a little blank space on my walls really does soothe me

But for those crazy souls out there like mine that tend to be all or nothing? It’s okay for it to be both ways.

We can love some minimalist without also having to deny beauty. After all the first act of our God was to CREATE something beautiful for us to partake of.

What is the gospel if not the sensual experience of tasting the break and wine?

We move in and out of seasons, but when we get stuck in fasting we miss the abundance of the feast.

So why does this matter to anyone but me?

Well, it might not at all.

Then again…

I hadn’t realized that I had put a full stop on God’s power in my life and when I did my faith stopped growing in that direction.

When I needed it? I didn't know how to get ahold of it. There was a glass wall that had to be shattered for me to grab it for both hands when the spiritual seemed too slippery.

Christmas shatters. I’m forced to acknowledge the tangible God. Jesus’ presence changes everything.The beauty of a birth announcement written in the sky. The value of gifts given and received for the sake of giving.

Capsule wardrobe and all, I can’t claim to be a minimalist living under such abundant grace.

So what I’m really asking is, what is His Presence shattering for you this year?